Monstrous motherhood : eighteenth-century culture and the ideology of domesticity / Marilyn Francus.

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

xi, 297 pages ; 24 cm

Mothers of the apocalypse: maternal allegory and myth in Swift and Pope -- All too human: maternal monstrosity and Hester Thrale -- Suffer the little children? the infanticidal mother in literature -- Until proven innocent: infanticide in the public record and in court -- Be monstrous or be marginal: stepmothers in literature -- Pin the tale on the stepmother: Elizabeth Allen and the Burneys -- But she's not there: the rise of the spectral mother.

Includes bibliographical references and index.